A personal review by Rod Ward of

Consumer Health Informatics:

Informing Consumers and Improving Health Care

This book which was published in 2005 provides an interesting collection of
papers on a wide range of technological methods which can be used to enable
consumers to find out quality information related to health and assist in
managing their health problems.

The paradigm shift from medical paternalism to a shared approach to care and
decision making, with patient empowerment, partly brought about by the Internet
and World Wide Web, is explored from a variety of viewpoints.

The book opens with attempts to define "consumer health
informatics" and explores the 10 levels at which consumers participate in
the access and use of health care information (based on work by
Tom Ferguson)
and personal case studies to illustrate the importance and potential of
developments in this domain. Following chapters look at specific types of
consumers of health information and the way in which it can be tailored to
their needs.

Gunter
Eysenbach, as well as being one the editors, provides a chapter on the
design and evaluation of consumer health information web sites, which should be
essential reading for anyone working in this field. Further chapters consider
the different delivery mechanisms from email and discussion boards to community
software, and the provision of on-line learning for healthcare consumers, and
topics such as "Disability Informatics", ethical issues and the
security of healthcare information systems. The book concludes with several
case studies which illustrate the principles discussed.

The papers do have a North American bias (all of the authors being from the
USA or Canada) and some of the specific examples are only relevant in this
setting, but the coverage is broad enough to illustrate principles which apply
throughout the developed world - it would have been nice to see some
consideration of the developing world too.

Most of the chapters are clearly written, avoiding too much technical
jargon, and supported by extensive reference lists. The book has been well
edited to reduce the duplication between sections. There are some illustrations
where this helps to illuminate the text and a reasonably comprehensive index to
help finding specific topics.

Generally I feel this book is a useful contribution to this emerging field
and is certainly worth purchase by healthcare libraries as well as providing
some very useful sources for those specifically working in the provision and
management of health information for consumers.